a problem shared is a problem halved
by lovelikeallhopeislost
Summary: Zach tries to cheer up a beautiful stranger at work. Much pining ensues. This is a continuation of 'in the absence of perfection'. It's recommended that you read that first, otherwise this story may not make much sense. / Coffee Shop AU. Zach/Cammie with(very) minor Zach/Josh and Josh/Dee Dee. Rated K. I made Zach bisexual because I can.


This is a continuation of 'in the absence of perfection'.

Essay planning was making me feel horrible and I've been wanting to do something creative for ages. Enjoy.

Ps this is slightly wine induced. Apologies.

This isn't beta'd, however I will be checking it over to try and remove errors soon.

* * *

The first smile exchange gave Cammie the confidence to visit The Comfort Spot again exactly a week after her first visit. She sat down at the same table, ordered the same coffee and stared at the same barista. It quickly became a daily routine, to the point where Cammie nearly ran out of money due to buying so much of the bitter concoction.

Zach had noticed the solemn looking girl trudging in every day and he pretended not to notice the way her eyes seemed to follow him around the room. She was fixated on him and for some reason, he found her intriguing. He knew her exact order and kept the best cup in the shop hidden near the coffee machine especially for her, all in foolish hope that he could make her smile. Four months had passed and he had been unsuccessful.

He remembered one of the days she had walked in absolutely soaked to the bone. The seat directly next to the biggest radiator in the shop had been vacant at the time of her arrival, but she still sat at the table in the middle, same as ever. She stuck to rigid routines and this made Zach interested. The girl was a puzzle he was trying to solve.

He'd had enough. Zach needed to find out who this girl was and wipe the mopey expression she always wore off her face.

A Monday morning rolled around, April weather bringing in grey clouds and little sunshine. Zach was at work from six in the morning, setting up the tables and refilling the machines.

He'd never been a clock watcher, as he'd always been able to make himself busy when he felt tempted - however, this morning he broke the habit. The shop opened from six thirty onwards and the girl would arrive at seven, as usual.

The next half an hour was the slowest time period of his life. The shop was unusually quiet - especially strange for a Monday morning - and this meant Zach wasn't kept busy by work, allowing his mind to wander. He pictured the girl: her dirty blonde hair catching the artificial light in the shop, her face showing so much pain, her eyelids fluttering to a close as the coffee he brewed for her hit her tongue, her eyes burning holes into Zach's back; all things that Zach finds beautiful about this stranger.

He snapped out of his miniature daydream when he noticed the clock. Five minutes past seven. And no girl.

Zach waited. And waited. All morning.

His shift ended at two and he hung up his apron in the back room, defeated. The girl - for the first time in four months - hadn't showed up.

Zach pushed the disappointment he felt out of his mind. It wasn't like it was a date between the two of them - why should he care? She'd turn up tomorrow and he could execute his master plan. He grabbed his bag and left the shop, but not before hiding the special cup behind the bags of coffee beans on the shelf, ready for him to retrieve it and make her coffee the next morning.

Except she didn't wander into the shop the next morning. Or the next. In fact, a full month had flown before Zach had given up getting the special cup out every morning and it remained hidden behind the heavy coffee bags, forgotten.

By the time Zach had lost all hope that the girl would come back, he'd met someone: a cute blonde boy by the name of Josh. They were due to have a date in a few days and Zach couldn't control his excitement.

The date day rolled around and Zach had an extended shift. He was due to leave at half four, then he had a half an hour walk home ahead of him, meaning he'd get home at five and have an hour to get ready before Josh arrived at six.

Zach clock watched his entire shift, antsy to get home and prepare himself for his date. He couldn't wait to see Josh's smile again as he seemed to radiate happiness, putting Zach into a good mood whenever he saw him.

As soon as the clock showed four thirty, he raced to get his apron hung up in the back room and rushed out the door, almost forgetting his bag in his excitement. He stepped into the dim light of the evening and began to make his journey home.

The walk home turned into a jog home as darkness fell and five minutes before he reached his destination, he collided with something - rather, someone - and fell to the ground.

After lifting himself off the person and rubbing his arm a few times, he studied the mess of dirty blonde hair on the pavement.

The girl groaned in pain and Zach stood up, offering his support in getting her upright. When he managed to get her standing, he noticed that her head was hanging low, with her hair shielding her face. He tried to slide his arm around her shoulders to aid her in getting her head up and internally debated whether getting her standing was such a good idea, but the girl pushed him off and looked up.

Zach was breathless. "It's you. The girl from the shop. It's you. It's actually you, I -"

She broke him off. "You know me?" A faint rosy red began to fill her pale cheeks. She was still as stunning as in the shop, even under the yellow light of the street lamps.

Zach's eyes were wide and darting everywhere, taking in every inch of her face in disbelief. "Yes of course. You're the girl who sits on the middle table at seven in the morning. Cappuccino, right?" He rushed his answer, but he was overwhelmed by all of the old feelings of hope and disappointment hitting him like a freight train. She was here. Actually here.

"Yes, how did you remember?" She looked shocked.

Zach could cry of happiness for reasons he couldn't quite explain. He could burst as the cocktail of emotions whizzed around his head, leading his heart to frantically beat. How was he feeling this about a girl he'd barely met?

"I noticed you." As soon as the words left Zach's lips, the girl's breath hitched and her eyes went as wide as saucers.

"But...nobody notices me." She quietly replied, her voice muffled. Her eyes cast down to the pavement as she played with her fingers, making her body shrink away from Zach until she was as small as she could possibly be.

"Well I noticed you." Was Zach's confident reply. He held out his hand, waiting for her to come out of her cocoon-like state and shake it.

The girl did just that, slowly extending her arm and placing her icy cold hand into his warm one.

"I'm Zach." He said with a smile, shaking her hand and not wishing to let go.

The girl meekly squeezed his hand in response to Zach. "I'm Cammie." She said, Zach finally getting the smile he'd hoped to achieve all those months ago.

"Would you like to go for a coffee?" Zach asked Cammie, swelling up with hope. Cammie released Zach's hand in favour of the other one, giving Zach his answer before she'd vocalised it.

"Yes please." Cammie replied, still smiling.

Zach cancelled his date with Josh in favour of spending his evening with Cammie. Josh was disappointed, but he quickly moved on to a lovely girl called Dee Dee. Zach still sees them with their children at the Abrams Pharmacy, which Josh inherited from his father after he died.

Cammie never fully explained why she stopped going to The Comfort Spot and truthfully, Cammie didn't really know why she stopped either.

Zach dug out the special cup when they got back to the shop and washed away the dust it had gathered behind the coffee bags. Miraculously, the cup never broke and it became the new logo for The Comfort Spot when Zach took over the business at the age of thirty. He made Cammie her favourite coffee in it every morning as a symbol of their love for each other.

Cammie got the future she wanted: the ideal husband and two children: the elder being a boy named Matthew (named after her father) and the younger being a girl named Catherine (named after Zach's mother). Their children soon grew up and left the home, with Matthew marrying a lovely lady called Rebecca and Catherine marrying a lady by the name of Elizabeth.

Cammie overcame her fears and anxieties about life, creating her own happiness. Zach, of course, helped along the way, but ultimately she dragged herself out of the hole she was in and channelled her passion for writing. She has now held three number one spots on the New York Times Bestsellers list and is working on her fourth novel.

Both Cammie and Zach never forgot the sad girl that wandered into the shop all those years ago. They had a new special cup kept hidden behind the bags of coffee in The Comfort Spot, brought out whenever another lonely girl found herself stepping over the threshold in need of a warm place to get away from it all. It became the legacy of the shop and slowly Zach and Cammie began sharing their happiness with the world, to one lost soul after the other.

The end.


End file.
